The invention is directed to an arrangement for presorting recyclable materials. More specifically, the invention is directed to a customized arrangement of plastic bags for presorting recyclable materials.
In recent years, the need to recycle materials has become more evident. Recycling conserves energy, reduces the need for landfills, and minimizes pollution.
It is desirable to presort recyclable materials as they are being initially disposed of to make subsequent recycling and recovery processes easier. For example, it is preferable that each household presort its various recyclable materials, such as different colored glass, metals, and the like, rather than attempt to sort out the various materials at a later time.
Several arrangements have been developed for presorting materials. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,639, issued to Schaerer on Jun. 14, 1988, discloses an arrangement for presorting garbage. This arrangement provides sectional sacks which form separate compartments. Each of the separate compartments can be used for sorting different types of recyclable materials. For example, one compartment can be used to store green glass, another compartment can be used to store brown glass, and a third compartment can be used to store metals.
The arrangement disclosed in the '639 patent is advantageous in that the arrangement takes advantage of the convenience of lightweight plastic garbage sacks to store various recyclable materials.
Unfortunately, a significant problem with presorting recyclable materials is that the various materials accumulate at different rates. In the '639 patent and other conventional arrangements, once one of the individual sectional sacks becomes filled, all of the sectional sacks have to be removed and disposed of--even though only one of the sectional sacks is full.
Another disadvantage of conventional arrangements is that conventional arrangements do not allow the user flexibility to customize the arrangement to his or her particular needs. That is, conventional arrangements do not allow the user to select the size of the compartments for storing the various recyclable materials.